World leaders pay tribute to Ronald Reagan

It was a masterful entrance. From the hush of the National Cathedral, there rose the regular tapping of the bishop's staff on the marble floor as Ronald Reagan's casket was borne in to receive the tributes of the most powerful people in the world.

Yesterday's state funeral brought 4,000 invited guests to mark the passing of a former American president - world leaders, past and present, enemies and friends. It was the greatest gathering of foreign dignitaries Washington had seen since the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks, uniting the icons of the cold war era with the leaders of a more complicated age.

All came to salute a leader who was remembered by eulogists as much for his sunny disposition as for the determination with which he pursued his deeply conservative ideals.

The grandeur of the occasion, the pomp and ceremony, appeared to rule out overt displays of sorrow. So too perhaps did the knowledge that Reagan, 93, had been weakened for over a decade with Alzheimer's disease.

Only George Bush Sr, who served as Reagan's vice-president before occupying the White House in 1988, betrayed a more personal grief, choking slightly as he delivered his tribute. "As his vice-president for eight years, I learned more from Ronald Reagan than from anyone I encountered in all my years of public life," he said.

The restrained solemnities, the high-powered assembly, was exactly as the Reagans had planned it. The Episcopalian service, with readings from Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders, unfolded according to instructions drawn up by Reagan and his widow, Nancy, more than 20 years ago.

Yesterday's proceedings were like a registry of the powerful, each guest arranged according to their placement in the Reagans' affections and their status in public life.

President Bush had the first pew near his father and the former presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton. Pride of place also went to Reagan's contemporaries, with Margaret Thatcher, his great friend and ally, seated immediately behind the family, flanked by a former foe, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the former Canadian prime minister, Brian Mulroney. Prince Charles was in the same row.